Episode 1178: RIP Russell Hoban

Ending of The Quantum Thief was excellent! Also leaves the story wide open for a sequel, so here's hoping. Am now valiantly trying to get back into reading Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. Postal issues have delivered the arrival of the new issue of Lucky Peach, so I couldn't start reading that. Also thinking of getting through some Ted Dekker or China Miéville while I'm back in Singapore. Definitely impossible to cart the Dekker novels over, although I could bring China's stuff over (again), I suppose, since I'm literally not packing any clothes for my return flight, just books, books, books. I know I said I was going to start reading academic stuff, and I definitely will once I'm over the jet lag! Genuinely excited to think about Christian Bök's work and its structure, as it really seems to tread that via media between avant-garde and accessible. Also, have just heard that Russell Hoban has died. Shame, he was one of my favourite novelists, criminally underrated writer. Maybe now that he's dead, more people will start reading his books. After all, death is one of the ultimate literary canonisers, if you're a believer in the canon. (If you aren't, you probably were reading Hoban anyway.)